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Down with the Black Flag of Coafiscation; up with the Union Jack. 



SPEECH 



HON. JOHN ¥. CHANLEE, OF NEW YOEK, 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 10, 1867. 
In reply to Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, on his Southern Confiscation Bill. 



: 480 


C45 


Jopy 1 



The House resumed the consideration of the bill 
relative to damages done to loyal men, and for other 
purposes. 

Mr. CHANLER said : 

Mr. Speaker : My object in entering on a 
discussion of this bill is to meet that pai-t of 
the plan proposed by the gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania to which he alludes in his opening 
remarks when he addressed this House in March 
last: 

"^ "Mr. Speaker. I am about to discuss the question 
of the punishment of belligerent traitors by enforcing 
the confiscation of their property to a certain extent, 
both as a punishment for their crimes and to pay the 
loyal men who have been robbed by the rebels, and 
to increase the pensions of our wounded soldiers. 
The punishment of traitors have been wholly ignored 
by a treacherous Executive and by a sluggish Con- 
gress. I wish to make an issue before the American 
people, and see whether they will sanction the per- 
fect impunity of a murderous belligerent, and consent 
that the loyal men of this nation, who.have been de- 
spoiled of their property, shall remain without remu- 
neration, either by the rebel property or the property 
of the nation. 

"To this issue I desire to devote the small remnant 
of my life. I desire to make the issue before the peo- 
ple of my own State, and should be glad if the issue 
were to extend to other States. I desire the verditjt 
of the people upon this great qtuesti on. This bill is 
important to several classes.of people."— JJfr.jSievens's 
Speech. 

As to that part of the subject which refers to 
the pensions of our wounded soldiers by con- 
fiscation and the payment of losses by loyal 
citizens I do not think the gentleman really 
means what he says, nor can he suppose seriously 
that there is property enough liable to confis- 
cation under his bill to do all he proposes. 

I shall therefore limit myself to the real spirit 
and intention of the bill as declared in the 
opening remarks of the gentleman just quoted, 
and as manifested by the whole tenor of the 
speech and provisions of the bill. 

It is not very clear from the remarks of the 
gentleman on what precise law either of nations 
or of this Government he proposes to base his 
proposition. Vague statements and blind 
glimpses at history seem to furnish the mate- 
rial for his argument, and as I endeavor to hit 
this slippery subject I hope to be excused by 
the House if the course I take seem to it weary 
and eccentric. The huntsman cannot choose, 
but must follow the track of the wild animal be 



seeks to destroy or drive from his neighbor- 
hood, say a fox for instance. The gentleman 
appears at first to rest his argument on the act 
of Congress of July 17, 1862 : 

" I proceed to consider the bill. By the act of 17th 
July, 1862, treason is made punishable by death or 
some smaller punishment, at the discretion of the 
court. Before punishment can be inflicted for trea- 
son or misprision of treason the party must be duly 
convicted in a court of the United States. Not so 
with the balance of the bill. All the rest of that law 
(after the first four sections) refers to persons engaged 
in the belligerent army, or ofiicially connected with 
the government known as the 'confederate States 
of America,' or to those who voluntarily aided that 
power. While that law supposed that most of the 
people composing that ariny and government were 
traitors, yet they are dealt with in all the provisions 
which refer to confiscation merelySas belligerents 
making an unjust war. 

But further on in his speech he abandons, 
that untenable stand, and throws himself head- 
long on the laws of war : 

"But it matters not what you may thin'k of the 
efficiency of the act of July 17,1862. The laws of war 
authorizes us to take this property by our sovereign 
power — by a law now to be passed. AVe have a sub- 
dued enemy in our power; we have all their property 
and lives at our disposal." — Mr. Stevens's Speech. 

He runs through history like a bull in a 
crockery shop, smashing the well-established 
precedents and fixed opinions of the authors 
he quotes into a mass of unintelligible stuff fit 
only for the use the gentleman makes of it to 
fill up a bad hole in his logic. And then he 
ends in a whine over "certain gentlemen" who 
' ' seem hard to learn either from the writings 
of learned publicists or from the passing and 
visible events of the present age." 

Confiscation, as known and practiced in 
history seems to be reasonably divided into 
two kinds: 

1. That customary among conquerors over 
foreign alien enemies. 

2. That statutory confiscation usual among 
Governments in dealing with refractory citi- 
zens, individually or in organized communities' 

We have to do, in my opinion, only with thePj 
second kind of confiscation in shaping our 
policy toward the States lately in rebellion. 

Confiscation is a method by which a con- 
queror robs his foes and rewards his friends. 
Two distinct acts are ^oufs by it, and two dis- 



Too 



tinct motives actuate it. One result is sought 
by it, namely, security to the State established 
by the conqueror. All confiscation is robbery ; 
it is the tool of the tyrant and the oppressor, 
who under the law of might creates his title to 
that which was another's. History is filled 
with examples of confiscation. Founded in 
violence, sustained by fraud, and sanctioned 
by necessity, it has become one of the estab- 
lished methods by which States are overthrown 
and maintained. Revolutions, civil wars, con- 
spiracies, assassinations, work the decay of 
dynasties, parties, and States ; but by confisca- 
tion the fictor seizes the spoils, and holds 
possession by the right of arms. Confiscation 
and proscription have moved hand in hand 
through all the changes and fluctuations of 
empire, and have come down to us heavy with 
crimes of past ages and stained with the blood 
and burdened with the wrongs of uncounted 

\ thousands whom man's inhumanity to man has 
made to mourn. The Roman triumvirs divided 
the empire and doomed their dearest friends to 

» assassination in the same breath. The genius 
and eloquence of Cicero could not save him 
from the doom which partisan hate decreed 
against him. The empire of Augustus was 
cemented with blood and enriched by the 
wealth of obnoxious men, proscribed by his 
partisans in a spirit of revenge and avarice. 
Roman liberty lost her last great advocate in 
the death of Cicero ; Roman empire began 
when the spirit of liberty was silenced by the 
edict of proscription and confiscation. All 
along the highway of history are strewn mag- 
nificent monuments reared to commemorate 
this mighty wrong by the successful tyrant of the 
era. No reader of the inscriptions which they 
bear can leave their perusal without cherishing 
a hope that in his day no ruthless tyrant shall 
rob him of his patrimony, his freedom, or his 
life. Confiscation is one of the hideous mon- 
sters chained to the car of grim-visaged war and 
never should be let loose to raven for its prey. 
It legitimately is only an instrument of terror 
and should not be let loose to destroy. In 
time of peace it should be nowhere seen or 
heard ; savage, cruel, destroying, it has no 
place among civilized, humane and law-abid- 
ing men in times like these. 

"Is it to beimasined that the laws which abolish the 
property of land and the succession of estates will 
diminish the avarice and cupidity of the great ? By 
no means. They will rather stimulate this cupidity 
and avarice." — Montesquieu's Spirit of Latos, vol. 1, 
book 5, chap. 14. 

"In moderate governments it is quite a different 
thing. Confiscations would render property uncer- 
tain, would strip innocent children, would destroy a 
whole familj', instead of punishing a single criminal. 

I' In republics they would be attended with the 
mischief of subverting equality, which is the very 
soul of this government, by depriving a citizen of his 
necessary subsistence. 

" Thereis a Roman law against confiscations, except 
., in the ca,sQoi crimen majestaiis, or high treason of the 
- -most heinous nature. 
'" "It would be a prudent thing to follow the spirit 
of this law, and to limit confiscations to particular 
crimes. In countries where a local custom has rend- 
ered real estates alienable, Bodin very justly ob- 
serves that confiscation should extend only to such 
as are purchased or acquired." — Montesquieu's Spirit 
of Laws, vol. 1, book 5, chap. 15. 



GENERAL APPLICATION. 

Blood for blood, eye for an eye, life for life 
cries the fierce spirit of vengeance. Put up 
thy sword and let us reason together, says the 
spirit of mercy. Give me thy sword, com- 
mands divine justice, for vengeance is mine. 
The conqueror sheaths his sword under the 
plea of justice, but issues an edict of confisca- 
tion against all who dared to brave his power. 
Poverty, disgrace, despair, famine, death by 
slow degrees, succeed the swifter methods of 
the sword. The spotless ermine of the law 
covers this relentless instrument of tyranny, 
and day by day the homes once happy, the 
fields once smiling in requital to honest toil, 
the mill whose busy hum sang of plenty in the 
land, the factory where every comfort was 
wrought out in turn by skill and ingenuity — in 
fine, civilization, art, industry, all stop as the 
solemn voice of the crier reads out the law 
which banishes the citizen from his house, the 
laborer from his field, the farmer from his 
homestead. Whole districts have been made 
desolate, towns depopulated, whole races ban- 
ished and crushed into abject insignificance by 
the laws of confiscation. Does the mover of 
this bill propose France as an example of the 
application of this principle ? Has the brief 
sketch of Robespierre given by one of Eng- 
land's late historians so charmed his heart and 
mind that he, too, would lead a new people on 
the old cruel, skeleton-covered road of confis- 
cation? The thing is not even original. There 
is something apish and brutal in it, but nothing 
human that is not revolting and bad as applied 
by successful demagogues in past ages to the 
unfortunate victims of revolution. 

" Consider Maximilien Robespierre, for the greater 
part of two years what one may call autocrat of 
France. A poor, sea-green {verdatre) atrabiliar 
formula of a man; without head, without heart, or 
any grace, gift, or even vice beyond common, if it 
were not vanity, astueity, diseased rigor (which some 
count strength) as of a cramp; really a most sea- 
green individual in spectacles, meant by nature for 
a Methodist parson, of the stricter sort, to doom men 
who departed from the written confession; to chop 
fruitless shrill logic; to contend and suspect, and 
ineffectually wrestle and wriggle, and on the whole 
to love, or to know, or to be (properly speaking) 
nothing. This was he who, the sport of wracking 
winds, saw himself whirled aloft to command la 
premiere nation de I'univers, and all men shouting 
long life to him; one of the most lamentable, tragic, 
sea-green objects ever whirled aloft in that manner 
in any country, to his own swift destruction, and the 
world's long wonder." — Carlyle's Essays, \ol.i, page 7. 

ITS GENERAL RESULT AND PAST HISTORY. 

As Alaric the Groth, " the scourge of God," 
trampled in the dust the proud power of the 
fallen empire of Augustus Ctesar, 

"And quenched in blood the brightest gem 
That glittered in their diadem," 
so has the ruthless course of confiscation in 
retribution cursed the weak inheritors of land 
taken from a conquered people. The sans- 
culottes of France plundered and guillotined 
the loyalists of their day until the wealth of 
France was destroyed and her blood wasted in 
fruitless wars, fought by ragged soldiers, until 
a tyrant, wise, ambitious, and powerful, like 
the morning star in glory, shone brightly over 
the nations and disappeared among the distant 
isles of the sea. In his turn he robbed the 



heirs of the sans-culotfes of wealth, liberty, 
and life. The statistics of France show that 
Napoleon's wars literally exhausted the popu- 
lation of the empire, and left her at the mercy 
of her enemies when the fortune of war drove 
the great Napoleon a fugitive from Waterloo. 
English Henry VIII covered the scaffold with 
a hecatomb of victims to his lust, avarice, and 
cruelty, to establish a church which should 
sanction crime, and to secure a legislation that 
could cringe to his despotic will. From the 
tyranny, cruel executions, and confiscation of 
vast estate, Henry destroyed the power of the 
nobility, crushed the Catholic Romish priest- 
hood, intimidated the Parliament. But Smith- 
field martyrs and all the victims of bloody 
Mary's reign rose as witnesses to rebuke the 
follies and oppressions of Henry : and it is not 
far-fetched to assume that the Puritans who 
beheaded Charles I sprung from those whose 
blood flowed on the scaffold raised by Henry, 
and learned the true duties of freemen from 
his licentious confiscation of land and property, 
bestowed on hungry partisans and unscupulous 
adventurers. 

Confiscation is one of the evil practices of 
parties which made Alexander blush before 
the robber. It belongs to the rubbish of his- 
tory and should be branded with the seal of 
infamy which has been fixed by modern civili- 
zation on the inquisition, slavery and piracy. 
No free people can practice them and preserve 
their liberty. No wise Government should tol- 
erate them — no virtuous nation will pour such 
poison into the minds of its children, or blot 
its statistics with such damning proof of man's 
degradation and brutality. 

Justice has no voice in such hue and cry 
after the vanquished in a time of profound 
peace and above all at a time when recon- 
struction of the Union is the known wish of this 
whole nation and the avowed object of our 
present legislation. It is strange that by such 
acts as these the party which has carried this 
Government through the war of the rebellion 
should so dim the brightness of its fame and 
so lower its high standard of "good will to- 
ward all, and malice toward none." Weak 
human nature with ruling passion strong in 
death ! Why should this old man persecute the 
white race "by a law which must desolate the 
homes of innocent women, harmless children, 
and impotent old men ? Let the annals of grim 
and gray barbarism and time-honored tyranny 
answer why. Cruelty seems so strong an ele- 
ment in our nature that not even the glow of 
complete triumph can soothe to rest nor mag- 
nanimity soften it into toleration for our fellow- 
man. From the time of Pharoah, who perished 
in the Red sea catching at straws he denied the 
Hebrews in Goshen, to the day when Napoleon 
was eaten up by a cancer and chagrin on the 
mean little island of St. Helena with Sir Hud- 
son Lowe for a comforter, and even to this 
hour hardness of heart have had its glory and 
its shame, its short triumph and long sorrow. 

Mr. Stevens in his speech asks and answers 
himself. 

" Is there anything in the practice of nations to 



condemn this confiscation ? Nothing; but everything 
to justify it. When a city of people in alliance with 
Rome conspired to levy war against her, on being 
conquered she was not unfrcquently deprived of half 
her population and their lands taken and given to 
Roman colonists." 

Memorable examples of the softening of the 
heart of nations under the trials of experience 
teach us our duty to-day. 

TREATMENT OF CONQUERED NATIONS BY THE EEPUBLIC 
OP EOME. 

"The Romans generally commenced by treating 
their provinces with mildness. The Government of 
Sicily was arranged on a basis which certainly did 
not augment the burdens on the inhabitants. The 
tribute imposed on Macedonia was less than the 
amount of taxation which she had paid to her own 
kings; and there is no reason for supposing that the 
burdens of the Greeks, whose country was embraced 
in the province of Achasa, were increased by the 
conquest. The local municipal administration of 
the separate cities was allowed to exist, but in order 
to enforce submission more readily their constitu- 
tions were modified by fixing a census which re- 
stricted the franchise in the democratic common- 
wealths." — Finley's Greece under the Romans, p. 28. 

LAWS EEGULATING CONFISCATION BY KINGS OP ENG- 
LAND. 

"In 1691 an attempt was made to render our law 
of treason more definite, just, and humane. But it 
was not until 1695 that the law on this point, assented 
to by William III, obtained its place in our statute- 
book. To us the Government of William may seem 
strong. But during some years the most intelligent 
men about him were far from regarding the now 
order of things as perfectly secure. The Jacobites 
were restless, noisy, and insolent, and besides men 
of that description whose imbecile fanaticism and 
malignant treason were belched forth every where, th e 
fact that a busy intercourse was going on between the 
court of James at St. Germains and his friends in this 
country was not wholly unknown to the statesmen 
of either party. To make the law of treason greatly 
more favorable to culprits in such circumstances de- 
manded some wisdom and courage, but after consid- 
erable deliberation the thing was done. The new law 
provided that the accused should have a copy of the 
indictment five days before trial ; that the names of 
the jurors should be given to him two days before; 
that he should be allowed the benefit of counsel ; that 
the witnesses in his favor might be examined upon 
oath and be compelled to make their appearance, and 
that overt acts of treason must be proved by two 
witnesses deposing to the same act, or to some act of 
the same significance relating to the same treason. 
It was provided also that judgment on a peer should 
be pronounced by the whole peerage, and not by any 
selection from that body made by the Government. 
In this enactment we see a near approximation to 
the law as it now stands. But even under William 
the manner of conducting such trials was not wholly 
free from irregularity and harshness. In the |KjSt 
reign the law became still more liberal. Biit^Jlie 
safety of state offenders in our history has gener*ily 
resulted from the force of enlightened public opinion 
more than from the letter of our law." — Vaughan's 
Bevolutions in History, vol. 3, p. 569. 

CONSTITUTIONAL VIEW. 

Confiscation is the punishment for high trea- 
son. Such has been the practice of all Gov- 
ernments. It is but fair, therefore, when con- 
fiscation is proposed by a Government against 
its citizens, or any part of them, that treason 
is the crime for which such customary punish- 
ment is inflicted. The Constitution expressly 
provides for such cases. The commentators 
fully define the intent and meaning of its pro- 
visions on that head, and without entering into 
any further examination of the practice of our 
Government in cases of treason and confisca- 
tion, I shall now simply quote the opinions 
of leading jurists, and leave the subject with 
them. 



First in order naturally comes the definition 
of the crime, and then its punishment. In 
fixing what constitutes treason the framers of 
the Constitution remembered their own great 
wrongs, and the great danger they had run in 
the struggle to redress them. They had a nat- 
ural and just horror of constructive treason, 
the plastic nature of which had helped many a 
tyrant to power and robbed many a free state 
of its peace. They therefore made treason 
odious, but at the same time rendered construc- 
tive treason not only odious, but impossible. 

PUNISHMENT OP TREASON. 

That the safety of the State might be secure 
in the hands of its legislature. Congress was 
empowered to punish treason against the Union. 
But fearful lest the partisan spirit of an elect- 
ive body might abuse the power of punishment 
by persecuting the opponents of the majority 
for political opinion rather than for treasonable 
acts, and renew the horrors of internecine par- 
tisan war under the pretense of punishing state 
criminals, a limit was put upon the power of 
Congress to punish treason. The children's 
teeth were not to be put on edge because their 
fathers had eaten of sour grapes. Nor was a 
political scaffold erected under the shadow of 
the Constitution to stain the land that Consti- 
tution was created to keep sacred as a refuge 
of tolerant men. Homeless orphans and house- 
less widows were to bless, not curse, the men 
who fought so long and thought so much and 
labored so well to redress the wrongs of Gov- 
ernments and establish the safety of the people. 

WHAT IS TREASON? EVIDENCE, CONVICTION, AND PUN- 
ISHMENT OF. 

"In this connection it seems proper to state the 
origin, and purpose of that definition of treason which 
is found in the Constitution, and which was placed 
there in order on the one hand to defend the su- 
premacy of the national Government and on the 
other to guard the liberty of the citizen against the 
mischief of constructive definitions of that crime. 
In order, therefore, to free the definition of treason 
of all complexity and to leave the power of the 
States to defend their respective sovereignties with- 
out embarrassment, the convention wisely determ- 
ined to make the crime of treason against the Uni- 
ted States to consist solely in acts directed against 
the United States themselves. 

"With respect to the nature of the evidence of 
this crime the committee provided that no person 
sli«|ld be convicted of treason unless on the testi- 
mOTS' of two witnesses. But to make this more defi- 
nite' it was provided by an amendment that the testi- 
mony of the two witnesses should be to the same overt 
act, and also that a conviction might take place on a 
confession made in open court. The punishment of 
treason was not prescribed by the Constitution, but 
was left to be declared by the Congress, with the 
limitation, however, that no attainder of treason 
should work corruption of blood or forfeiture ex- 
cept during the life of the person attainted." — Cur- 
tiJs History of the Constitution, vol. 2, pp. 384-387. 

Punishment of posterity for the treason of 
their fathers: 

"The reason commonly assigned for these severe 
punishments, beyond the mere forfeiture of the life 
of the party attainted, are those: by csmmitting 
treason the party has broken his original bond of 
allegiance and forfeited his social rights. Among 
these social rights that of transmitting property to 
others is deemed one of the chief .and most valuable. 
Moreover, such forfeitures, whereby the posterity of 
the oifender must sufi'er as well as himself, will help 
to restrain a man not only by the sense of his duty 
and dread of personal punishment, but also by his 
passions and natural affections ; and will interest 
every dependent and relation he has to keep him 



from offending. But this view of the subject is wholly 
unsatsifactory. It really operates as a posthumous 
punishment upon them, and compels them to bear, 
notonly the disgrace naturally attendant upon such 
flagitious crimes, but takes from them the common 
rights and privileges enjoyed by all other citizens 
where they are wholly innocent and however remote 
they may be in the lineage from the first offender. 
It surely is enough for society to take the life of the 
offender as a just punishment of his crime without 
taking from his offspring and relatives that property 
which may be the only means of saving them from 
poverty and ruin. It is bad policy too ; for it cuts off 
all the attachments which these unfortunate victitus 
might otherwise feel for their own Government, and 
prepares them to engage in any other service by which 
their supposed injuries may be redressed, or their 
hereditary hatred gratified." — Story's CommerUariea 
on the Constitution, chap. 28, sec. 655. 

EXAMINATION OF THIS BILL. 

Having spoken on the general character of 
confiscation laws and the punishments usual 
among civilized nations, I now shall ask for 
the attention of the Speaker to the character, 
object, and effect of this particular measure. 

Sir, it is a legal lineal offspring of that 
body of laws which sent the commissioners of 
Herod to every household to fetch him the 
young child whom he feared. It is of the 
same kind as those memorable laws of Spain 
which drove the Moors from their homes in 
Andalusia; and of that edict of France which 
sent Protestant Huguenots to this land and 
everywhere out of their native land in search 
of a home. 

It is the same kind of law, in a written form, 
as the crude lawsof conquest issued by the com- 
missioners of the king of Dahomey, of Congo, 
or any barbaric absolute monarchs of Central 
Africa, which strips every prisoner of every 
right to live save at the option of the con- 
queror. The object is the same, the effect the 
same — revenge! revenge! revenge! and all 
in the name of justice under the cover of law, 
cruel, bad law, terrible dire vengeance, carry- 
ing desolation and ruin in its course, blear- 
eyed justice seeing only the avenues of wrong 
and cruelty. 

This measure is not only intolerant, unjust, 
unwise, and despotic, but it is unnecessary : 
not only unnecessary, but impossible. It can- 
not be carried into effect even if passed by 
Congress, signed by the President, and sanc- 
tioned by the Supreme Court. 

Sir, the people of this Union would repeal 
it in open convention, as a blot on the statute- 
book of a free and enlightened nation. 

The time has passed for such laws. Although 
some gentlemen on this floor cannot see it, or 
will not see it, the war is over in the South, in the 
East, in the West, and above all, in the North. 

When this bill was introduced there was a 
party in power, on this floor at least, capable 
and perhaps willing to pass it. 

It was one of a long series of indictments 
which, as the great dragon "swinges the horrors 
of his twisted tail," was to close in upon the 
white race of the southern States and to stran- 
gle them into a torpor worse than death — the 
torpor of political subordination to the negro. 
This is the tail of this horrid monster of polit- 
ical atrocity ; it carries the sting which was to 
rob the white race of all political vitalitj' iu the 



future. Its fiery bi'eath was to light np the 
flames of another civil war of races, the prize 
to the conquering race to be the public lands 
in the southern States. That the negro might 
be stronger and more irresistible for evil in 
this conflict, the Secretary of War is, by this 
bill, made monarch of the black kingdom of 
Dixie. Supreme and mighty lord, serene, 
invincible sovereign and commander-in-chief 
of the black armies which were and may here- 
after be enrolled into our services, armed and 
equipped, without law of Congress, but on the 
mere general order of the War Secretary. 
That money might be had for this black horde 
without additional tax the lands confiscated 
by this bill are to be sold, always, however, 
under the commission of this sovereign Secre- 
tary of War, who shall make a trust fund of a 
large part of the proceeds of the sale to keep 
the families of his black warriors in hog and 
hominy, Avhile the throats of white citizens are 
being heroically cut or their starved bodies 
stuck with black bayonets. 

PREAMBLE OP 

A bill relative to damages done to loyal men, and for 
other purposes. 

Whereas it is due to justice, and as an example to 
future times, that some proper punishment should 
be inflicted on the people who constituted the "Con- 
federate States of America," both because they, 
declaring an unjust war agaiist the United States 
for the purpose of destroying republican liberty and 
permanently establishing slavery, as well as for the 
cruel and barbarous manner in which they conducted 
said war, in violation of all the laws of civilized war- 
fare, and also to compel them to make some compen- 
sation for the damages and expenditures caused by 
said war: Therefore. 

But, sir, this bill is too full of interest, too 
sparkling with radical genius, and too glowing 
with radical philanthropy to be passed over 
without special notice of at least some of its 
sections. Mr. Speaker, Burke said in regard 
to the wholesale decrees of the British Parlia- 
ment against the American rebels of 1776, 
"You cannot make out an indictment against 
a whole people." 

But, sir, here is another indictment actually 
written and printed. Mr. Burke never met 
with such a master mind as the one which 
framed this bill. He certainly could never 
have thought that a portion of the descendants 
of the rebels of 1776 would imitate Lord North 
and his Tory majority in doing stupid and im- 
possible things. But times change, and we 
change with them. 

Whoever in future ages shall visit the ruins 
of this Capitol to search our archives for records 
of republican government as here administered, 
and shall study the causes of our ruin and read 
this law, mindful of the lessons taught by our 
fathers in their own- struggle — whoever, I say, 
shall do this will be justified in refusing to 
believe that the people who made this law and 
the patriots of 1776 are the same race of men. 

Why, Mr. Speaker, certain critics who have 
found many supporters now declare that we 
have fallen already into a premature political 
decay and have no claim to the wise prudence, 
sagacious toleration, and even-handed justice 
of the framers of our Constitutian. 



If such critics and their school need proof 
we have here conclusive evidence strong as 
Holy Writ that we are at least leaving the 
path of duty and wisdom which our fathers 
marked out ; and we have our leaders here 
to-day who have taken us astray. This bill is 
their work and not the act of the people. The 
people are firm to their faith in the principles 
and provisions of that Constitution. The over- 
whelming majorities against the Republican 
party have settled that question forever. 

Mr. Speaker, what a tyrant's plea is this 
preamble for licensing every crime under the 
sun, in the name of justice ! It is an artful 
evasion of the Constitution of the United States, 
which expressly defines treason, fixes the man- 
ner of trial and conviction, but limits the power 
of Congress to declare the punishment for trea- 
son. 

By declaring the ' ' people who constituted 
the confederate States of America" belliger- 
ents, in the second section of the bill, thereby 
making them amenable to the law of nations 
and putting them out of the pale of the Con- 
stitution, the framer of this bill seeks to pun- 
ish in an unconstitutional manner a portion of 
the people of the United States avowedly guilty 
of treason by levying war against the United 
States and in adhering to her enemies. 

Sec. 2. And he it further enacted. That the Presi- 
dent shall forthwith proceed to cause the seizure of 
such of the property belonging to the belligerent 
enemy as is deemed forfeited by the act of ITth July, 
A. D. 18(52, and hold and appropriate the same as 
enemy's property, and proceed to condemnation with 
that already seized. 

" I suppose none will deny the right to confiscate 
the property of the several belligerent States, as they 
all made war as States; or of the confederate States 
of America; for no one ever denied the right of the 
conqueror to the crown property of the vanquished 
sovereign, even where the seizure of private property 
would not be justified by the circumstances. 

[Speech of Mr. Stevens. 

This bill is an eflfort at constructive treason, 
to wreak partisan vengeance by aid of sophistry. 
Who were the people who "constituted the 
confederate States of America" when they 
formed the confederacy? Plainly a portion of 
the people of the United States. 

Their act of confederation and rebellion was 
treason. Their crime is clearly defined, their 
manner of trial established by the Constitu- 
tion, and on conviction Congress has tlie power 
to inflict punishment, provided always that no 
attainder of treason can work corruption of 
blood or forfeiture except during the life of 
the person attainted. 

If "the people" who constituted the con- 
federate States of America were not citizens 
of the United States at the time of their waging 
war against the United States who were they? 
Where did they conspire? How come they to 
be in possession of the " ten States that formed 
the government of the so-called confederate 
States of America, ' ' named immediately in the 
first section of this bill? 

Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Represent- 
atives of the United States of America in Congress 
assembled. That all the public lands belonging to 
the ten States that formed the government of the 
so-called "confederate States of America" shall 
be forfeited by said States, and become forthwith 
invested in the United States. 



6 



The preamble charges this people who con- 
stitute the Confederate States of America with 
proposing to destroy republican liberty. Where 
was this republican liberty established which 
they purposed to destroy? Certainly every child 
can inform the gentleman from Pennsylvania. 
The whole history of the rebellion, the promi- 
nence of its leaders in the Congress of the 
United States at the outbreak of rebellion, 
their resigning from every branch of this Gov- 
ernment while citizens and even Representa- 
tives of those ten States, fixes the facts. 

The second section, therefore, of this bill is 
brutum fuhnen. 

The President dare not consistently with his 
oath to maintain the Constitution "forthwith 
proceed to cause the seizure of the property 
belonging to the belligerent enemy" and hold 
and appropriate the same as enemies' property. 
Nor can the President appoint the two com- 
missions or more for each of the "said con- 
federate States," to adjudicate and condemn 
the property aforesaid, as proposed in the third 
section. 

A title to such property could not be secured 
to any purchaser in any court ; and a standing 
army costing this country per annum the value 
of all the land so seized would not be able to 
insure peaceable possession for the ten years 
contemplated in the fourth section. 

But, grant for sake of argument if you like, 
that this can all be done as contemplated by 
this bill. Why should it be done? For whom 
is this free gift of the public lands of this Union 
made? 

The fourth section declares "that out of the 
lands thus seized and confiscated the slaves 
who have been liberated by the operations of 
the war and the amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, or otherwise, who resided in said confed- 
erate States on the 4th day of March, 1861, or 
since, shall have" these lands. • Now, Mr. 
Speaker, admit that the two or three hundred 
thousand negroes who fought in the Union 
Army, under the training and command of 
white officers, at the expense of our people 
overburdened with taxation, deserve a reward 
and recognition for their valor and saci-ifices 
during the war,j|,what has that to do with the 
slaves who resided in the confederate States in 
the service of our enemies — in the confederate 
army a great majority of them — during the war? 
The reward is rather due to the laboring men 
of the Union who were not slaves, and will not 
be classed with slaves, but who were as faith- 
ful to this Union as the most gallant soldier 
in our Army ever was. 

If you propose to reward the negro slaves of 
the southern rebel who stood faithful to his 
master until our brave soldiers drove both 
slave and slaveholder to submission, and 
compelled an unconditional surrender, why, 
Mr. Speaker, have not the whole people of the 
Union who remained faithful to this Govern- 
ment in the day of danger and trial been con- 
sidered in this bill? Why this invidious dis- 
tinction in favor of slaves and freedmen, to the 
insult and neglect of the loyal white men of the 
country? Under what claim to truth does this 



bill declare, in the preamble, "it is due to jus- 
tice " that this act should take effect to endow 
land, to clothe, to house, and to feed slaves, 
while our public credit is pledged to defray 
the expenses of the war which freed these very 
slaves? Allow, as the zealous Radicals claim, 
that our victories were won by the negro troops ; 
allow that the white race did not free the black 
slave of the South by his valor, suffering, and 
fortitude; allow the history of tliis war to be 
a lie as written on the tombs of our gallant 
soldiers of the free States who fell on every 
battle-field of the South, and left mourners at 
every hearth of the North, East, and West. 
Allow all this. Still are we to give away the 
land of our common inheritance to slaves who 
never raised a hand to fight for their own free- 
dom? 

ECONOMICAL VIEW. 

What will all this cost? What is the value 
of the land proposed by this bill to be given to 
the slaves of the ten confederate States? In 
the present disturbed condition of that section 
it is perhaps impossible satisfactorily to answer 
this question. An approximate estimate alone 
can now be made. The figures offered are taken 
from the best available sources: 

Department of the Interior, 
General Land Office, 
December 9. 1867. 

Sir: I am-in receipl^your communication, dated 
the 6th instant, requestinga statement as to the num- 
ber of acres of public land in the States lately in 
rebellion, and the approximate value of those acres 
in money. 

There are only five of these States in which the 
United States own public lands. The names of these, 
the quantities remaining undisposed of on the 30th 
June, 1867, and the money value at SI 25 per'acre, 
the minimum price, are shown in the first three col- 
umns. The fourth column indicates the asgregate of 
certain swamp selections, claimed under the swamp 
grant of September, 1850, within these States, which 
have not been approved. These selections form no 
part of other swamp lands, which years ago were 
approved to those States, as shown on page 68 of the 
annual report of the General Land Office for 1866. 



States. 


Acresunsold 
and unap- 
propriated 
up to ,30th 
June, 1867. 


Value at 
$1 25 per 
acre, the 
minimum 
price. 


Acres se- 
lected as 
sw amp, 
suhieet to 
approval. 


Florida 


17,540,374.00 
6,915,081.32 
4.930,893.56 
■ 6.582,841.54 
11,757,662.54 


$21,925,467 
8.643,851 
6.163,616 
8,228,551 
14.697,077 


889.629.70 


Alabama 

Mississippi... 

Louisiana 

Arkansas 


476.918.93 

2.002.98 

2,948.06.3.22 

1,368,669.80 


Total 


47,726,852.96 


$59,658,562 


5,685,284.63 











I am, sir, very respectfully, yoiir obedient servant, 
JOS. S. WiLSON, Commissioner. 
Hon. John W. Chanler, M. C, Home of Repre- 
sentatives. 

What will the commissioners together with 
the trustees awarded for in section four of 
this bill cost this Government? It will come 
to over one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
dollars per annum to put the machinery of the 
fourth section into operation, allowing that 
under the present circumstances and condition 
of affairs in the late rebellious States such a 
plan is possible. 

Stsic. i. And be it further enacted, * * * * 
* * * For the purpose of distributing ancj 



allotting said land the Secretary of War shall appoint 
as many commissions in each State as he shall 
deem necessary, to consist of three members each, 
two of whom at least shall not be citizens of the State 
for which he is appointed. Each of said commis- 
sioners shall receive a salary of $3,000 annually and 
all his necessary expenses. Each commissioner shall 
be allowed one clerk, whose salary shall be $2,000 per 
annum. The title to the homestead aforesaid shall 
be vested in trustees for the use of the liberated per- 
sons aforesaid; trustees shall bo appointed by the 
Secretary of War, and shall receive such salary as he 
shall direct, not exceeding $3,000 per annum. At the 
end often years the absolute title to said homesteads 
shall be conveyed to said owners or to the heirs of 
such as are then dead. 

What will the trustee system cost? By this 
system proceeds of the salgs of the public lands 
are to be kept for the exclusive use and benefit 
of these slaves and the other blacks who may 
now reside in the ten confederate States, and 
nominally for the benefit of the pensioners of 
the Government and to pay damages done 
loyal citizens during the war. 

It is utterly impossible to calculate, even 
approximately, the cost of carrying out this 
portion of the bill, or to estimate the expense 
of preserving the right of the grantors under 
this act should a military force be required to 
assist the officers herein appointed. 

Sec. 5. And he it further enacted. That out of the 
balance of the property thus seized and confiscated 
there shall be raised, in the manner hereinafter pro- 
vided, a sum equal to fifty dollars for each home ■ 
stead, to be applied by the trustees hereinafter 
mentioned toward the erection of buildings on the 
said homesteads for the use of said slaves." 

What will be the probable cost of carrying 
out the provisions of this bill by force of arms 
should a war of races ensue ? What will it 
cost to prevent a war of races if this bill be 
enforced by the Secretary of War ? These are 
all questions which should be answered before 
this bill becomes a law. Of the whole probable 
expense to the people of this Union of carry- 
ing out this scheme no reliable calculation can 
be made and none can reasonably be stated at 
this time of confusion in the States to which it 
is to apply. 

It remains to consider if we can bear this 
probable extra expense now ? For an answer 
to this question I refer the House and coun- 
try to the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations, who better than any man in 
the country ought to know what our liabil- 
ities and assets at this time are. He brought 
-in this bill while chairman of the Committee 
on Appropriations, and after having served 
several years as chairman of the Committee 
of Ways and Means. 

POLITICAL VIEW— BALANCE OF POWER IN CONGRESS. 

Mr. Speaker, there remains a point in this 
debate which seems to me too important to be 
passed in silence. 

Is there any political object in this bill? 
Perhaps not; but I think assertions made by 
leading Radicals here warrant the supposition 
that some such object underlies the bill. From 
a political point of view this bill is one of the 
many like measures to create and keep the 
negro vote for the Republican party. Having 
created the negro constituency by previous 
laws, it is now proposed to bribe that constitu- 
ency to vote for the Radical leaders. 



A Protestant negro constituency in the Afri- 
canized southern States is to be pitted in the 
political arena against the Catholic white im- 
migrant at the North, the East, and the West. 
Four million blacks are to be bought at the 
rate of many hundred millions of money vested 
in land grants. The whites are to shift for 
themselves ; they cannot be bought. They know 
how to govern themselves and vote for them- 
selves. They know the value of freedom frofn 
long possession, and the power of the ballot 
from long use and experience. 

Sir, I pronounce this bill to be a monster 
of injustice to the living and an outrage against 
the fair fame of the dead heroes of the Union 
armies. Suppose this act to become a law. 
How are you to enforce it? What will be the 
result of such enforcement? Has the gen- 
tleman who proposes this measure not seen 
enough of bloodshed and civil strife? Can 
the land have no rest from the curses which 
this rebellion has already put upon her, but 
a new cause of bloodshed and destruction in 
every form must be inaugurated here? Will 
the war of races in the South be any less fatal 
to our prosperity because we bring it about? 
Sir, this bill to me seems a mad, bad, worthless 
plan to deluge the South in blood. It can have 
no other result. It will cost millions of treasure, 
thousands of lives, and years of public distress 
in every department of life. The black man 
must work for his own living, earn his own 
■wages, and buy his own land. This Govern- 
ment has no power and no right to make a 
special pensioner of him. If he has not man- 
hood enough to thrive by his own industry let 
him quit the soil and make room for his betters : 
they are coming from every land by thousands 
every day and dwell in every city of the North. 

The African has no time-honored experi- 
ence of the power and value of the ballot, and 
scarcely knows where to go with it, and for 
whom to deposit it, except a white man shows 
him the way. The European brought the right 
to vote with him. His ancestors used it for 
centuries to choose their representatives to 
control their governments and to rebuke their 
kings. The African savage or the African slave, 
whether in America or Africa, knows nothing 
about this sacred symbol of individual liberty 
and representative government. He is as de- 
pendent on the white man in these things to-day 
as he was when he first landed on our shores. 
He is yet in his pupilage, and must be taught 
how and for whom to vote. 

This bill, Mr. Speaker, proposes to secure 
his gratitude for the Radical leaders and bribe 
his vote. It is clearly liable to this charge. 
It is thought by this scheme to check the polit- 
ical power of the Democratic party of the free 
States and build up a petty African princi- 
pality in the ten southern States under the 
dominion of certain political religious fanatics. 

Such a scheme must fail. It is a wicked and 
weak plot. It is treason against the people. 
It is a political heresy against the tolerant 
principles of the Constitution. It may bring 
about a war of races or a mixed war of races 
and religions, but it never can restore this 



8 




013 701 79'? 



Union or maintain this Government as formed 
by the Constitution. 

Sir, the dominion of this continent belongs 
to the white man. He formed the nations which 
now extend across it. He developed the 
civilization which those nations protect and 
adorn. His is the mastery, and you might as 
well seek to check this planet in its course 
around the sun as to curb the white man in 
kis dominion in America. The white race is 
fulfilling the destiny of their race and the law 
of their God. This bill from this point of 
view is too feeble to deserve but a passing 
notice. But the gentleman who introduced it 
has held great power in this House, and is 
held in great esteem by the party in power, or 
lately in power, in this Government. His word 
was almost law here but a few short months 
ago. He has declared on this floor that 
to say that this Government is a white man's 
Government is blasphemy. He has cham- 
pioned the black race here and has boldly 
advocated an equality of the races^always 
apparently, however, turning his back on the 
poor Indian and Asiatic. 

The gentleman's discriminations do him 
honor, and his zeal may yet be crowned with 
success. 

Against the efforts of himself and his party 
it is the chief satisfaction of the Democracy 
to labor, and perhaps not always in vain. 

But, if such bills as this become laws under 
the efforts of any political party, I believe that 
party will perish or this Union will pass into a 
military despotism. 

A constituency created, maintained, and pro- 
vided for in land and homesteads by the Gov- 
ernment they are called on to elect is a mon- 
strous anomal}', and is only fit for tyranny. 
The present system of military departments, 
the Freedmen's Bureau, this bill, all its kith 
and kin, argthe schools in which the freedmen 
of the South have learned their duties as citi- 
zens. Dependent on the General Government 
for everythmg, they have learned to look to it 
for all they want, and have not the faintest' 
knowledge of the responsibility of the Govern- 
ment to them. Such, sir, is the balance of 
power proposed by this measure. 

What a resemblance does this crazy plot 
to preserve partisan supremacy offer to the 
similar plan of the great protector of England, 
Oliver Cromwell ! He, sir, had fanatics enough 
to deal with. He had traitors of all sorts ready 
at hand, and had the power and will to hang 
them at short notice. He, too, held the bal- 
ance of power, not by yielding to fanatics but 
by using them ; not by wasting the public treas- 
ure and domain but by enlarging it ; not by 
making his authority ridiculous by throwing 
pearls before swine but by rendering the name 
and dignity of a citizen and freeman still more 
famous, formidable, and honored than ever 
before in England. This Congress has been 
called the Rump Parliament; 1 doubt the jus- 
tice of the fling. Where is the statesman who 
can shape the fanatical madness of tii;3 Ilouse 
to some useful end and make its acts in peace 
worthy of the deeds of our armies and navies 



in battle ? Certainly not by wastefully throw' 
ing away millions of acres of public lands on 
the slaves of the leaders of the late rebellion 
and excluding the families of the white heroes 
who fell in your service from possessing any 
share of those lands unless they consent to 
mix with a race still fettered in mind by the 
manacles of slavery, though bodily ransomed 
by our laws. 

"Cromwell maintained aceordingrly, and with mani- 
fest justice, that for 'the present an enlightened 
regard to the interests of the nation recjuired that 
the most vigorous efforts should be made to prevent 
the complete success of any one of these parties, and 
to balance them against each other, so as to bring 
them at last to some common ground of settlement. 
His experiments in convening his several parlia- 
ments were all designed to facilitate such an adjust- 
ment of differences by mutual concession as should 
be most in accordance, in the circumstances, with 
mutual right aad duty. Unhappily in his time the 
enm' es of the several factions were not to be s-o far 
con.roi.ed, either by reason or humanity, as to allow 
the country to realii'.e the prosperity and greatness 
which it might have derived from his lai'ge and 
equitable policy. The source of those acts of despot- 
ism observable in the government of England dur- 
ing the Protectorate will be found mainly in the cir- 
cumstances now mentioned. Cromwell, like most 
men who have risen to supreme power without being 
born to it, became an arbitrary ruler from the neces- 
sities of his position. 

" AVhen his parliaments refused supplies the salva- 
tion of the State depended on his extorting them by 
the sword. In the spring of 1655 he did not hesitate 
to place many of the leading nobility and gentry 
under arrest until they should tind bail for their 
peaceable conduct. But at that moment th'e land 
was known to be covered with a network of con- 
spiracy, either royalist or republican. It was at that 
juncture, too, that the ordinance was published 
which declared every royalist worth a hundred a year 
liable to pay a tenth of his income to the support of 
the Government. It was to collect this assessment 
that the Protector's major generals were invested 
with their large powers in the districts committed to 
their oversight. Cromwell intrusted this service to 
men for the most part in whose discretion he had 
the greatest confidence. But where there was much 
known disaifeetion the burden no doubt often fell 
very grievously. The hope of the Protector in con- 
vening his third parliament in the following year 
was, that supplies being thus obtained for the exi- 
gency, such 'arbitrary proceedings, so unacceptable to 
the nation,' might come to an end." — Vaughan'sMev- 
olutionary History, vol. 3, pp. 392-395. 

Mr. Speaker, the people have spoken in 
reply to the invitation of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania. He said on the 19th March last : 

"To this issue I desire to devote the small remnant 
of my life. I desire to make the issue before the 
people -of my own State, and should be glad if the 
issue were to extend to other States. I desire the 
verdict of the people upon this great question." 

Sir, the gentleman has received the verdict. 
He has been found guilty, and the country 
breathes freely and naturally once more, after 
the horrors of a long and bloody war ; after 
a fierce political strife; after enduring with 
long-suffering patience the ceaseless cry for 
blood, vengeance, and robbery from the gentle- 
man and his followers on this floor. The 
black flag which they hoisted over this Capitol 
must come down. Hoist the Union Jack, and 
say to the ship of State: '"Sail on, ihou glorious 
ship, freighted with the hopes and happiness 
of millions. The curse of piracy and outlawry 
and confiscation shall not rest on our peo- 
ple. We are free and united, and, with 
God's help, will share our blessings with our 
brother man. " 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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